Actually, I won’t.
I don’t have a crystal ball.
But I don’t really need one to see what I already know is in my future.
PEACE, JOY AND LOVE.
That’s what.
How do I KNOW this?
Because that’s the road I choose most of the time.
That…and gratitude.
Oh, sometimes I forget for a minute…or an hour…or even a day. But, I’ve learned to come back ‘home’ pretty quick.
I’m not very comfortable anymore with DRAMA, ANGUISH OR FEAR.
I’ve had more than my fill of those, thank you, very much! Most of it was, of course, of my own choosing.
I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions anymore. But, if I did, I would resolve to continue finding even more reasons for gratitude. I’m never disappointed. NEVER. If I look, for even an instant, I can ALWAYS find something to be Grateful for. And in a heart and mind where there is gratitude, nothing negative can take up residence. It might come for a brief visit, but it just doesn’t stay very long.
Gratitude is the house of bricks that the big, bad wolf simply cannot tear down…no matter how much he huffs and puffs.
So, huff away and puff away, you big ol’ bad wolf. You are no match for my house full of PEACE, JOY AND LOVE…..and
AMEN!
And....HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!!!!
14 comments:
Happy New Year my friend. I am most grateful to have you in my life, and this blog to read each morning.
Happy New Year Sharon!
I came here looking for some fresh air and knew that I would find it here. The fragrance of gratitude, joy, love & peace is refreshing aroma's to have in any heart and home! Bless you for that!!!
Years ago, when our kids were little I can remember being grateful for a clunker of a washing machine! I remembered helping my Grandma wash clothes in her wringer washer and lugging them up the basement steps to the clothes line. Even though we had a dryer back when our kids were young there were still times I loved to hang the fresh laundry outside and think of how much I loved helping Grandma. I miss her and she has been gone a long time. I miss my Mom too, but I know I will see them both again someday. Sometimes, even in this huge family of mine, I feel alone. But, then I even have a choice on what to do with those feelings.
So, for a moment I embrace it and I know that no matter how I "feel" for just a moment...that I am really never alone. There are angels around me like my Grandma and Mom and other precious women that have been a blessing in my life...some are in "angel form" literally and some are earth angels.
I am grateful for all of you! And for a great husband that would help me with laundry anytime whether it be 3 loads a week like it is now....or 3 loads a day like it was back when. It didn't matter....because it was always done together in love with grateful hearts.
2010 will bring even more of the simpliest blessings and those are the ones I hold dear and speaks well of all of our journeys.
Your pictures are beautiful and I am feeling the warmth from there all the way to Indiana where it is about 20 degrees right now. yikes and burrrrr!
Thank you Sharon, for sharing your grateful heart and pictures of your peaceful place on this earth.
Love,
Debbie
So well expressed Debbie. A place where gratitude and peace instills its presence.
I add a thank you from me. And thank you for the photography - I love the roads you selected...they do express the essence of the concepts.
Outside my window is a soft gray sky, dsep dark siluette of Catalpa tree and slowly drifting clusters of snow, clusters large enough to be seen individually and just the right amount of spaces in between to be entertaining.
The snow today has a bit of the feel of lovely memories of women hanging clothes on the line.
We have something to be grateful for, in our friendship, Lori. And we both know it. :)
Debbie, I knew you'd be back when you had a minute to catch your breath. ;) Wish you could have gone with hubby and me today. We were climbing around on some desert rocks in our t-shirts...and working up a sweat! LOL
Joan, I love your description of the catalpa tree. But I must admit, I prefer my trees sans snow! ;)
I still love hanging clothes on the line...just smells sooo good! And there's something 'grounding' about doing it, don't you think? It's a connecting dance with generations of women. Happy thought!
Sharon...you lucky critters crawling around on rocks in your t-shirts in January! I love rocks and t-shirts and warmth in January! Right now our favorite time of day is when we both crawl under the electric blanket at night and thaw out!!! ~giggle~
I love what you wrote to Joan about hanging clothes on the line...."a connecting dance with generations of women. Happy thought!" And I couldn't agree more.
Hi Joan~~and thanks for your lovely comments that adds to the "dance of women" while doing a simple thing such as laundry. I can smell all that starch my Grandma used in those sheets!
Wishing you all a warm New Years Day night wherever you are.
Love,
Debbie
Debbie, May I introduce you to Joan. Joan, meet my friend, Debbie. You two would love each other immediately. :)
You and Ted will just have to come visit God's country...just make sure it's not in the summertime! LOL
Thanks for the introduction to Joan, Sharon...but we met earlier at the clothesline while hanging out together. hahahaha
Seriously, thank you Sharon for your light heartedness and allowing me to come here for some fresh Arizona air! We might make a trip out that a way someday and swing by Utah too...I happen to know a froggy footed fairy that lives there. ~giggle~
Grateful for humor and light hearts...would you pass the clothes pins please Sharon or Joan it is a mighty stretch with this big old quilt of Grandma's. :)
Hugs ya'll~~
Beautiful post, once again! I know that I was amazed when I really got it that I could choose how I feel.
Gratitude is what does it. Being grateful keeps me centered and grounded in a way that I have come to trust as the firmest ground.
Years ago I started a gratitude journal, in which I wrote down 5 things each day that I was grateful for. Sometimes they were shallow and quick. Sometimes they were deeply and profoundly felt.
Over the years I have come to see these journals as clear evidence that there is a Higher Power in my life and that no matter what is going on I always have something to be grateful for - many things to be grateful for.
Distraction may get my attention now and then. But gratitude brings me back every time!
Happy TwentyTen!
Debbie, I got the clothes pins promptly out of the bag (remember the ones like a little dress that stash the clothes pins and has a hook that fits right over the line? Just kidding, as far as I know the bag no longer lives here, nor the line, only the pins)
I am passing you both kinds of clothes pins...the pinch ones because I find them my favorite during the hanging up time...and the forked slide on ones because I find them easier during the taking things down time :)
I am keeping some of the pins on this end of the line so I can pin up the other half of that grandma quilt with you.
Lori, Sharon got more clothes pins anyone?
there is something special about clothes pins and clothes lines that always make me smile inside...
here I use the dryer and sometimes just drape mittens and things over the metal fireplace screen...and occassionally I try yet again to recreate the clothsline things here...but this place is not always willing to let a clothsline habitate here...
clothslines thrived at my grandmothers and at my mothers...and at my home where my children were little
but even though I try, so far they just don't thrive here...but that lack of thriving just leaves room for new loves to brighten my heart...
this place over the years has decided it does like to be home to gardens and little girls and boys who help plant and harvest them...and who make running paths carefully laid out and used around them...and cats, have I mentioned this place seems to welcome cats? Another reason to give up on a clothes line.
My cats would much rather I just throw the clothes in the dryer and spend some time being their lap.
and this place is a haven for "a young woman" who is in yet another stage of her life, a little less lythe than she was as a little girl but still full of willing wonder and still willing to get back up when she falls and still willing to do what she can, and as she can to do more.
I'm a-lovin' the views, Sharon! Afterall, you can't take the desert out of a desert rat!!! I do love my snow-covered mountain views, but right about now, I get a hankerin' for some desert heat to stop my teeth a-chatterin'. LOL I keep thinking my Mother would love seeing your photos, since them thar is her old stompin' grounds. ~he-he~ (She'd cringe if she saw the bad grammar I just used, though.)
I'm a-lovin' the company you keep here, too, Skay!!! Makes me feel very at home. By the way, Debbie ... wouldn't a road trip from my place to Skay's be grand?!? That patio looks really inviting!
(((Happy New Year HUGS))) to y'all ~*~ Karen
Ya'll Come! LOL You cain't take the 'Texas'out of a girl, either...and I've got just a touch of it in me.
Cindy (art and soul)....I agree...a gratitutde journal is a mighty tool for changing your life, isn't it?
Joan~~what a lovely, lovely way you have of sharing and I especially liked your last paragraph! I could feel that "young woman" inside me rise up and say, "Me too!" Thanks for passing those clothespins along!
Karen~~a road trip from your home ot Sharon's would be a blast! I can hear us singing to all the music we grew up on and some good ones here lately. Let's go~~on the road again~~
Sharon~~Texas girl huh? me too kinda. I lived in San Antonio for a short time years ago about the age of 15 and had a blast there with my girlfriend. One of my sisters lives near Austin now. I got lots of places to go visit!
Sweet Dreams All~
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